Passengers flying from Leeds-Bradford International Airport to Turkey faced delays yesterday as police investigated complaints that a 21-year-old air hostess was working while drunk.

The Onur Air flight to Dalaman was grounded while police questioned the woman, passengers said.

After the woman was arrested at the airport in Yeadon she was found to have no alcohol in her breath but airline passengers were becoming angry by the latest in a series of delays.

The flight had been due to set off on Tuesday night but had been diverted to Manchester, and then grounded by “heavy fog” an airline spokesman said.

It had already been rescheduled for take off at about 1am yesterday but had to be rescheduled again because the crew needed more sleep to fly safely under industry regulations.

But when the Turkish airline staff returned for the plane in an attempt to take off a second time at about 6.30am, a member of airport staff smelled alcohol on one of the members of the air crew, a West Yorkshire police spokesman said.

Officers from the force’s Operational Support Unit, who were travelling from Wakefield to a drugs raid in Bradford, were diverted to the airport and arrested the woman, who has not been named, on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol.

She was given a screening test which indicated she had been drinking but gave a zero reading in a full test at Weetwood police station and was released, a West Yorkshire Police spokesman said.

The legal alcohol limit for flight crew is ten microgrammes of alcohol in 100ml of blood.

The police spokesman confirmed that a Turkish woman member of cabin crew was arrested at Leeds-Bradford Airport yesterday on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol. The spokesman said: “She was taken into custody but released later after giving a negative breath test. She returned to the flight which then went on its way.”

The flight eventually set off at 8.45am.

A spokesman for tour operator Goldtrail, which contracts flights from Istanbul-based Onur Air, said she could not comment on the allegations against the hostess but said the airline was investigating it as a “separate incident”. She said flight agents working for Onur Air had provided welfare and overnight accommodation to passengers during the “very regrettable” earlier delays.

She said: “We do offer our sincere apologies to all our clients for any inconvenience encountered during the delay to the flight.”